


The Hand of Another, or One’s Own

by GaHoolianGirl



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: But this can very very easily be read as strictly platonic too, F/M, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, M/M, Personal Growth, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, The relationship doesn't HAVE to be romantic but obv I had that in mind, Well all know the particular event I mean by that but it still deserves hearty warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-16
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-06-29 10:35:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19828378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaHoolianGirl/pseuds/GaHoolianGirl
Summary: Those cowardly, whispered desires could never be silenced, not truly. Most days, they laid low, too cravenly to make themselves any more known, but they grew more bold upon occasion...they were ever constant companions, except they were the sort that made you more lonely than anything else.There was one day, however, that they hid no more.





	The Hand of Another, or One’s Own

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, this fic has a hopefully ending but it's for the most part not a super happy story, so a warning there. There's a lot of self projection in this...while I never get as close to acting on it as Zevran, I do have a lot of passively suicidal thoughts, which take a very similiar form to what I express here. Pretty carthardic to write, all around, and I hope that makes it a good read for you all.

It was all very subtle really.

When he ran a cloth over the oh-so-sharp edge of his dagger to clean off the blood of another poor soul who happened to exist wrong in the eyes of some inconsequential wealthy noble, his mind would wander. What would it feel like, driven into his own flesh? Would it be the same was when he paid someone’s ticket into the arms of the maker? Would he then feel what...she felt?

Of course, these ponderings never passed the point of being just that; curious musings that were cut short by the harsh reality. Taliesan would call his name and he would shut that mental door, turning the key and locking it away for another time. 

Despite being a dealer of death, a man who was always aware that one's end was not some far off event that would take one when the Maker decided was best, but an inevitability that could come to claim at a moments notice, he never thought to act upon it. Maybe it was his instinctual desire for survival that all mortal beings possessed, or perhaps it was that he felt that his death at his own hands would be handing over some twisted victory to those who instilled these feelings inside him. It mattered not, the end result never changed.

His life meant nothing, yet he lived it all the same.

Those cowardly, whispered desires could never be silenced, not truly. Most days, they laid low, too cravenly to make themselves any more known, but they grew more bold upon occasion, when he heard the hooves of a galloping horse and wondered why he should not run underfoot, or when a violent storm raged just beyond the shore and he considered the ramifications of jumping into the tempestuous waters. They were ever constant companions, except they were the sort that made you more lonely than anything else.

There was one day, however, that they hid no more.

Fittingly, it was in a room full of his tormentors, all eerily silent. Not a soul would dare take on a Grey Warden. Not only because they were perhaps the _only_ group that the Crows saw as untouchable, but to take on a Warden was, well...

His hand raised in the air, true intent hidden behind a confident grin. He only had to mask the pain long enough to accept this job, travel to Ferelden, and find the person in question. If he could not make that leap with his own hands, why not hand the task off to another? An unknown foe who was certain to best him, to give him the sweet release he could not give himself. 

Fate, the Maker, or mayhaps simply chance, had other plans in store for him, however. The one who he had determined to be the one to take his life chose mercy instead. Mercy, that may not have been the right word, as his survival was a mere accident, the result of an arrow missing the vital artery it had intended to hit. 

Curses. 

Zevran laid there, in a puddle of his own blood mixed with Ferelden’s famous mud (he had heard some call it their most frequent export, as it tended to stick to your boots the whole trip home), looking up at the one who was meant to be his faceless demise, and made a choice.

“...so let me serve you, instead.”

* * *

The Warden later asked him a simple, well seemingly simple, question, after Zevran had determined that he had nothing left to lose in confiding his long buried truths to them. 

“Do you still want to die?”

The answer was, predictably, as complex as it could be. Those urges, desires, subconscious suggestions never truly went away. They would not ever, most likely, as they had made their home in the deepest reaches of his mind and not even the strongest magics could ever hope to evict them. But they were muted now, muffled under layers of new, good experiences that served well to put the most painful memories even farther in the past. The best medicine was time, he was always told by the whores that raised him, and it took until now for him to see the wisdom of their words.

Kindness was another thing that had many more layers than it seemed to at the surface, another lesson taught to him by his dear Warden. He had always seen it as novel concept, doing things for the benefit of others, and for that reason alone. It would be nice to do, but that was not the way the globe turned. In an imaginary land of ideas, perhaps, but he knew well enough that was not the world he lived in.

 _Lived_ , being the key world there, as he saw now that it was the world he was _living_ in. Kindness, mercy, goodness...they were not universal, they could not be so or else they would not even be named, for there would be no need to distinguish them. But they could be practiced, wisely. The Warden did just that to him, after all, and his continued living and actual active desire to do so were testaments to the power of an outstretched hand.

Whether that hand be of another, or one’s own.

Zevran’s mind would always travel to dark corners, demons with no association with the Fade attempting to convince him of the merits of storming the Deep Roads single handedly, but...

...if he had someone willing to use their strength to pull him out from those places, then he could crawl his way out on his own, as well.•

**Author's Note:**

> I think this is honestly one of my fave pieces I've put out in awhile, I'm pretty proud of a few of the turns of phrase I used. Fics with very little dialogue are rare for me, since they're often called my main strength, solet me know if this worked out! And just whatever else you thought whole reading, haha.


End file.
